


Three things about Col. Sherman T. Potter

by denynothing1



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: 3 Things, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-10
Updated: 2008-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-27 07:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/denynothing1/pseuds/denynothing1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three little things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three things about Col. Sherman T. Potter

**Author's Note:**

> For Shari.

(1)  
Col. Potter never wants to get anywhere near either Walter Reed or the Pentagon. Despite being a hell of a good commander and a decent administrator, not to mention that he knows everybody who's anybody in the upper ranks, politics drives him batty. 

There's a very good chance he'd terminate a Distinguished Service Medal-worthy career in disgrace after performing an unauthorized lobotomy on a Congressman. With a letter opener. 

(2)  
Potter was famous -- or infamous, depending on who you talked to -- for teaching his corpsmen how to do surgery. This was in WWII, before M*A*S*H units were invented, but Potter couldn't abide the snobbery of the officers and "gentlemen" doctors around him who liked to keep the glories and mysteries of medicine to themselves. 

If a trained corpsman could do a tracheotomy or a cut down, could pack and temporarily sew up a blast wound while the surgeons were slammed, he was damn well going to learn to do it. That is, if Potter had anything to say about it. 

Lucky for the troops, he did.

(3)  
Mildred was smitten by Private Sherman Potter, Corpsman in training, from the day they met at one of his CO's wife's (pretty much mandatory attendance required) garden parties. 

Her girlfriends warned her that she'd have a miserable life with a soldier, what with having to move all the time, but Mildred couldn't wait to travel and see the world. Her mother warned her that if she showed interest too soon, she'd scare Sherman away, or worse, cause him to take her for granted, but Mildred saw the solid honesty in Sherman's eyes, and knew that wouldn't happen. 

She didn't tell her mother that the first thing she loved about him was that he called the CO's fondness for mindless marching and barracks cleaning, which took the corpsmen away from their ward work, "horse hockey." Mother would not have approved. But Mildred knew what she wanted, and she got it. 

For his part, Sherman never knew what hit him, but it didn't matter. Even if their first conversation took place over iced lemonade and cucumber sandwiches, and he knew that all he could provide for her back then was near-beer and beans on toast, Sherman knew instantly that Mildred was a gamer. 

And that if anyone could turn his ordinary life extraordinary, it was her.


End file.
